Generator Grantees | Round 7 | December 2023

Experimenter Labs  announces the seventh round of recipients of the Generator Cooperative Art Production Fund. We are proud to support projects by  Adil Hasan, Chandan Biswas, Dhiraj Rabha, Ha Dao, Lakshmi Nivas Collective (Namrata Neog and Sunoj D), Shehzor M, Shruti Chamaria, and Vipin Dhanurdharan. The seventh round of applications were evaluated by curator Nada Raza, curator and artist Ravi Agarwal, artist Samson Young and the Experimenter team.
Adil Hasan (He/Him)

Adil Hasan (b.1985) is a photographer who regularly explores and engages themes of time, death, and the shifting landscape that is memory in his work.

Adil will utilise the grant for his project "Black CAT White CAT", an artist's photo-book that explores the intricate relationship between photography, remembrance, and the abstract concept of superposition in quantum physics. It delves into the blurred boundaries between reality and imagination, prompting the reader to question the nature of our experiences and the formation of memories.

Adil is based in New Delhi, India

Photo credit: Anshika Varma
Chandan Biswas (He/Him)

Chandan Biswas (b.1991) is a filmmaker and editor; his art practice is concerned with how different media and forms of cinema, literature, sound, and visuals can be juxtaposed through history and memories from the lens of quotidian life.

Chandan will utilise the grant for his ongoing film that traces the narrator-filmmaker's journey to resurrect dormant Super 8 film spools of pioneer Super 8 filmmakers in India in the 70s and 80s juxtaposed with his own collection of archival footage, in an attempt to perform a retelling of the city's past and future against repressive attacks on personal and public memory.

Chandan is based in West Bengal, India

Photo credit: Anuska Paul
Dhiraj Rabha (He/Him)

Dhiraj Rabha (b.1995) was born in Borali Gaon, Assam, India, and grew up in an ex-ULFA detention camp in Assam. He completed his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan.

Dhiraj will utilise the grant to create an audio-visual installation, combining image archives, audio, and video elements. He intends to question prevailing narratives, shedding light on the silenced and marginalised stories. The work focuses on collective memory, displacement, the identity of a group of people and the Ex-ULFA detention camp.

Dhiraj is based in Assam, India
Ha Dao (She/Her)

Ha Dao (b.1995) is a photographer who uses images and multimedia to explore stories of love on the margin. Ha co-runs Matca, an independent initiative dedicated to opening conversations around photography in Vietnam.

Ha will utilise the grant for her project "If Heaven Awaits", which recounts the story of Dung Hà, a notorious Vietnamese mafia who was shot point-blank by her rival at age 36 in the year 2000. Adopting the aesthetic of Y2K music videos, this work centres lesbian desires and butch gender expressions backdropped by heteronormative pop culture.

Ha is based in Hanoi, Vietnam

Photo credit: Vu Khoi Nguyen
Lakshmi Nivas Collective – Namrata Neog & Sunoj D (They/Them)

Lakshmi Nivas Collective was formed by Namrata Neog (b.1990) and Sunoj D (b.1979) in 2018. They are an anthropologist/artist duo and are seasonal goat herders. Their transhumance practice probes into politics of commons, structures of domestication, indigenous knowledge systems in the Chthulucene.

They will utilise the grant for their project "Smell of green", that draws from the seasonality of herding and farming in the micro ecology of Parudur village, Kerala. This work peeps into a grazing landscape where the bulls have slowly disappeared and the lines of intersubjectivity and interobjectivity in nonhuman-human relations have transformed into unknown territories. 

Lakshmi Nivas Collective is based in Kerala, India

Photo credit: Gerhard Stromberg
Shehzor M (Ae/Aem)

Shehzor M (b. 2002) is a rapper and storyteller from Hyderabad, Telengana working between Dakhni and English.

Shehzor will utilise the grant to continue working on "Awaarelaal Studios", an independent studio space for the production of progressive art, in the medium of zines, podcasts, films, video essays, music videos, and short films. The project aims to create a space to produce works in the English and Dakhni, and amplify the experiences of queer artists, mainly from Hyderabad.

Shehzor is based in Telengana, India
Shruti Chamaria (She/Her)

Shruti Chamaria (b. 1986) is a visual artist from Bangalore, India. Her personal practice proposes to reflect on a span of aesthetic, social, and technological transition, examining the notion of the image in all its forms.

Shruti will utilise the grant to create a series of (spot colour) based silk screen artworks encompassed in an ongoing photographic undertaking. The project attempts to unlock the inclusive and exclusive framework of a particular type of visual imagery. It also aims to capture an important legacy of public art by addressing structural issues, including labour practices in the creative industry, past and future aspirations—declarations of conflict—and compromises.

Shruti is based in Karnataka, India
Vipin Dhanurdharan (He/Him)

Vipin Dhanurdharan (b.1989) is a self-taught artist; his works are a reflection of the time and people that he engages with. This practice of art for him is a way of understanding the world a little more every day. The practice, its continuous repetition, is what allows him to engage in the process of learning and unlearning.

Vipin will utilise the grant to continue his project, "Untitled Kitchen", an experimental, collective, moving kitchen. During the project duration of one year, the Kitchen will come together to cook food with the community in Gulbai Tekra, Ahmedabad and conduct workshops for children in the local school in the neighbourhood. The area is home to a concentrated population of the Baori, a nomadic community who make plaster of Paris sculptures of Hindu gods and have distinct food habits. He envisions this kitchen as a space of dissemination of knowledge through discussions, cooking and drawing.

Vipin is based in Gujarat, India

Photo credit: Ramesh Palanichamy